ESCANABA, MI – Bay College's Grace Van Wormer is set to represent the Norse at the NJCAA National Championship on Saturday in Richmond, VA, Van Wormer qualified for the meet with her performance at the Region XII Division II Championship held at St. Clair County on October 25.

Van Wormer not only qualified but did it in spectacular fashion.  Her time in the Region Meet was 20:45.70, a full minute better then her personal best set back in September at Muskegon in the Conference Meet.  Had it not been for an abnormal season, Van Wormer may have been hitting her current times a lot quicker.

After missing the preseason due to prior commitments, Van Wormer and the Norse opened the season at St. Clair County on September 30 with the All-MCCAA Meet.  Grace was running her first ever cross country event, having been a soccer player and a track athlete in high school that ran the mile as one of her events.  She ran a time of 23:55.1 in that meet.

After the solid start to her career, Van Wormer had three weeks before the next event the Norse was scheduled to run.  The time and training paid off in a big way as she went the Northern Conference meet in Muskegon and blew away her previous time, finishing that race with a time of 21:45.53.

Van Wormer suffered a set back at that point, and an injury kept her from the next scheduled event at Kirtland on October 4.  Finding ways to get her back to where she needed to be proved to be a challenge for Head Coach Scott Carhoun, but it was a challenge he met head on.

"We had to get really creative with her training," said Carhoun.  "We had to utilize the bike and the pool quite a bit.  We had her running, but once she felt any little bit of pain, we shut her down, so she wasn't running the distances that we needed her to.  Because of that we had to find alternative ways to get Grace ready to compete again."

Van Wormer was not about to miss the first home meet for the Norse since 2020, and although it was admittedly not her best performance, she did post a time of 23:11.2.  More importantly she made the point that she was back and ready to compete. 

Compete she did.  With just a week in between the Bay Invitational and the Region Meet, Carhoun, the Norse Cross Country Team, and Van Wormer worked together to get in the best possible position to perform.  Back at the site of the first meet of the season, Van Wormer put up an astonishing 20:45.70 time.  It was more than three minutes better then the first time she ran that course, and almost two-and-a-half minutes better than what she had run just a week prior.  The hard work and training had paid off as the time and placement in that meet more than qualified her to run at the NJCAA National Meet on November 9.

"It's really cool to see that the hard work and training got us there," said Carhoun.  "I am really excited that Bay College will be represented at the National Meet and really happy for Grace."

"The Bay Cross Country Team is a really good community, and the friendships made it so much easier," said Van Wormer.  "With my limited cross country experience, there were times I wanted to quit, but our coaches and teammates were so supportive and helped give me the drive to keep going and get to where I am.  It is definitely an honor to represent my teammates in Virginia."

Carhoun echoed those statements, "For me it means a lot, I am so happy for the team, the parents, and the families that support us.  All of them wanted to come along and show their support for Grace, but this group has been so supportive of each other and all of the individual successes this season, including every one of our runners reaching a personal record this season is strictly because of a team effort.

"I have never done anything like this before," said Van Wormer, "but in anything I do I like to reach for the highest accomplishment I can.  So when I found out I was going it was such a relief.  I am excited, a little scared, but I can't wait to get there and take it all in."

"This season has been a really fun experience," added Van Wormer.  "I would recommend it to anyone.  Our team, coaches, and community surrounding the team have been so great, it has been great experience.  I would recommend running to anyone."

The NJCAA National Cross Country Meet will take place on November 9 at Pole Green Park in Richmond, VA.  The Women's Division II Meet will start at 9:30 AM EST.  Links to live stats and the livestream will be added to the Norse webpage on the schedule page for Women's Cross Country when they become available.  Go to www.baynorse.com for updates, or follow Bay Norse Athletics on Facebook and X for more information.